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Application for The Last Voyages
Mar. 23rd, 2012 02:11 pmUser Name/Nick: Rah
User DW: saywhaaat
AIM/IM: nccgqmf
E-mail: iamrah at gmail
Other Characters: Jesse Pinkman, Angua von Uberwald, Regina George
Character Name: Benton Fraser
Series: Due South
Age: 37
From When?: Post-series
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Fraser is not without his faults, and even went through a brief period where he might have made an appropriate inmate, but ultimately, he's a good man who's utterly dedicated to the cause of justice and helping people. He's considerate, attentive, concerned, and committed.
Item: Fraser will, in fact, carry a compass in his utility belt.
Abilities/Powers: Fraser is a human man with no supernatural abilities. However, in his pursuit of being the Best Mountie he can Be, he's tried to take himself to the limits of human capability. He has superb stamina and can, for example, stay awake for days on end, run for several miles without pause, or "push through" severe injuries. It's not that he's not affected by these things -- it's that he's very, very good at ignoring their effects. In terms of physical talents, he also has essentially perfect aim, and the unique ability to identify most substances by taste and smell. He is an excellent tracker.
Mentally, he's similarly honed. He has a near photographic memory (emphasis on the "photo," as he's better with image than sound) and can speak several languages with varying degrees of fluency, including French, several Native languages, multiple dialects of Chinese, and Russian. He's well-versed in field medicine and tribal/traditional medicine. He also has a great affinity with animals, especially dogs and horses. He also has the surprising tendency to, say, crawl through dumpsters or sewers, yet come out looking clean and unmussed.
Speaking of dogs, Fraser brings with him his lifelong canine companion, his half-wolf Diefenbaker. Dief is deaf, but can read lips in both English and Inuktitut.
Personality: In a way, there are two Benton Frasers: there's the man he strives to be, and the man he really is. The former is what most people see on a regular basis: he's been compared to a wooden soldier, a nutcracker, and Dudley Do-Right, among others things, and that's pretty accurate to the face he presents to the public, and even to his friends a lot of the time. This outer Fraser is all about attaining perfection in the pursuit of justice, and seems all but untouchable. He works tirelessly, always gets his man (always), is fair-minded but strictly moral, never lies, is extremely intelligent and unwaveringly polite... and he isn't interested in baser entertainments like drinking, smoking, or even, seemingly, sex. He's almost the platonic ideal of a man.
As befits such a man, Fraser isn't much given to displays of emotion and can come across as extremely stiff, awkward, and even cold. The former two are true; the latter, only sometimes. Fraser genuinely does believe in being kind and generous to people whenever possible. Despite his slim salary, he gives charitably whenever possible and even frequently gives money to strangers. Because of this last part, and his tendency to assume that other people lie as rarely as he does, he's seen as extremely naive and gullible, and that's also sometimes true, but this particular vulnerability sometimes pays off in surprising ways (for example, he gives a large amount of money to a man begging in the street for a very suspect "treatment for his sick kid"... only to have his money returned later on with the man's gushing thanks). On the other hand, it also makes him very exploitable at times.
He is, however, pretty damn awkward. Fraser's learned a lot of facts, but very few social skills. He's especially uncomfortable with women, and especially women who seem interested in him (at times, he appears to be downright terrified of them), but even with men, he can be fairly inept. He doesn't understand a lot of slang and has an embarrassing habit of misreading things: for example, someone tells him his uniform is "badass" and he is deeply offended by the insult. However, there are hints that at times this is also a put-on, and he understands more than he lets on... not always, but sometimes, because it can be very beneficial to have someone believe you're stupid. On the other hand, Fraser's misunderstanding of people often means he gives them the benefit of the doubt when others don't feel they deserve it, as seen above. It's not *just* that he's more likely to believe a sob story. He's more likely to believe in the goodness of people in general.
This doesn't mean he'll be easily swayed from his duty, though. If he's given a mission and he believes it's righteous, he will stop at absolutely nothing to fulfill it, even at the risk of property damage or damage to himself. He will refrain from hurting others, and he will attempt to keep his quarry alive/won't outright kill them, but he also won't go to pieces if one dies in pursuit. He's pretty comfortable with the subject of death, especially after being haunted by his father for three years. Death, to Fraser, is less frightening than failure. This failure can take many forms: first and foremost is duty, but as Fraser is also deeply loyal to the very few who manage to penetrate his emotional walls, it can also apply to failing them. That makes him miserable, whereas death really isn't all that scary at all. He frequently gets up to death-defying stunts with little concern at all for his own well-being, even when it results in disaster. On one adventure, he was rendered temporarily blind, then half-paralyzed, and still gamely and even somewhat cheerfully insisted on pursuing a suspect.
Fraser's ability to take things in stride, when those things aren't people with emotions, will make him well-suited to the Barge. He's extremely adaptable and will have more problems fitting in than he will dealing with floods or ports. One obstacle he may face, however, is that he is *extremely* morally rigid and does not take well to people suggesting he relax. It's not religious in nature, so it has very little to do with sexuality -- despite his personal discomfort with the subject, he's pretty open-minded about such things (and depending on interpretation may even have once canonically admitted to being bisexual -- he claims not to understand why his straight partner wouldn't want to go on a date with him in drag!). Fraser's unofficial religion is the RCMP, so his morals pretty much come from there. He's vehemently opposed to all forms of lying, cheating, most kinds of violence, and really any unnecessary rudeness. He's determined to uphold the rules and the law at any costs. There are times he'll bend the rules, or use them to his own advantage -- for example, arresting an innocent murder suspect in the Canadian Consulate building so that said suspect would have to be extradited to be arrested in Chicago proper -- but he will never actually break them.
As such, he may not do well with an inmate who needs, for whatever reason, to hang on to a very gray morality (Arya Stark, for example, would not be a good inmate for him, nor would Amanda Young have been), and he might feel like a failure if he does graduate such a person. It's not gray morality itself that's the problem, but he wouldn't like to have a graduate who still thought murder for any reason was okay, for example.
History: Benton Fraser was born in the Northwest Territories in 1961, the son of Caroline Fraser and legendary RCMP Sergeant Robert Fraser. So rural that he was conceived in an igloo and born in a field, Fraser spent the first six years of his life following his father to various middle-of-nowhere postings in places like Inuvik, Nunavut, and Tuktoyaktuk. When he was six, his mother was killed, and Fraser went to live with his grandparents because his father couldn't care for him alone.
George and Martha Fraser were highly strict Presbyterian missionaries and traveling librarians who homeschooled Benton and raised him to be an extremely proper young man. At times, he resented this, and even tried to run away from home more than once. However, his friendships with the local Inuit kept him more or less grounded and taught him a different way of looking at the world. At 18, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the RCMP.
Although the young Constable Fraser quickly earned a reputation for being his father's son -- with an intense sense of justice, relentless dedication to the job, and keen attention to detail and law -- he was not popular among other Mounties and canon implies he was very lonely. Early in his career, he tracked a bank robber named Victoria Metcalf; after being trapped with her in a storm for several days, he fell in love with her, but still refused to compromise his sense of justice and brought her in. She was sentenced to ten years in prison. During this time, he also met Diefenbaker, who saved him from drowning, but lost his hearing as a result.
When Fraser was 34, his father was murdered by his own partner Gerard, whose crime Fraser uncovered and brought to justice. However, since Gerard was a highly respected Mountie, Fraser turning him in ended up making things more difficult for him. He was given a liaison posting in Chicago "until things smooth[ed] over"... although this lasted more than two years. In Chicago, he became unofficial partners with a CPD cop named Ray Vecchio and helped him solve many cases. During this time, his father returned to him as a ghost, making occasional appearances to dispense advice. After a year on the job, he nearly lost everything when Victoria Metcalf tracked him to Chicago: she manipulated Fraser and framed him for murder (and even critically wounded Dief in the process), only to ask him to run away with her instead. He was about to leave Chicago with her when Ray Vecchio accidentally shot him, aiming for Victoria. She got away and Fraser was left behind, dying.
He survived and spent the next year putting himself back together, both physically and psychologically, continuing to work with Ray Vecchio. At the end of their second year together, though, Ray seemingly vanished. Worse -- a complete stranger had shown up, claiming to be Ray. The stranger turned out to be Ray Kowalski, an undercover detective who had been brought in to cover for Vecchio while Vecchio was undercover in the Mafia. After some initial friction, Fraser became fast friends with Kowalski, and even turned down a transfer back to Canada in order to keep working with him. He made a few other close connections, and most notably met his half-sister Maggie McKenzie, his father's daughter by another woman. Neither Maggie nor he knew about the other (even his father didn't realize Maggie was his), and while they felt a connection to each other, they initially interpreted it in a very different way. Luckily, Fraser realized the truth before anything too inappropriate could happen.
At the end of his third year in Chicago, Fraser was confronted by his mother's killer: a man named Muldoon whom his father had failed to bring to justice, and then seemingly killed, decades before. Fraser's chase of Muldoon took him back to Canada and ultimately led to Ray Vecchio's return, Fraser's decision to leave Chicago, and his ghost father's final crossing to the afterlife. After bringing Muldoon to justice, Fraser and Ray Kowalski left on a cross-country adventure through Canada, searching for the Hand of Franklin. I'm headcanoning that at the end of their adventure, Fraser takes this "temporary" posting on the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The camera turns on to show what appears to be an actual cabin in the woods, small, but complete with a roaring fire blazing in the hearth. The man holding the camera is wearing full Mountie regalia, and looks pleased as punch.]
My thanks for the accommodations, Admiral. It's rather more space than I need, but I'm sure I'll finds ways to fill it.
[There's a bark from offscreen, and the man raises an eyebrow and says, quite pointedly:] No. Not with Krispy Kreme. We don't even have a Krispy Kreme on board, as far as I know.
[He turns his attention back to the camera, clearing his throat.] I beg your pardon, everyone. My name is Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. I first came to the Barge-- well, that's not important right now, but I'll be here as a warden for the time being. I'm very much looking forward to it. [Horrifyingly, this appears to be genuine.]
Sample RP:
It was strange to think of himself as lonely.
Oh, he'd always been solitary; that was nothing new. He'd had solo postings for years before Chicago, gone into the very depths of the Territories for weeks on end without companionship, sometimes without even Diefenbaker. He knew he didn't mesh well with most of the Mounties in his own generation, and even many from his father's days. He accepted these things, if not happily, than without great misery about it.
But that had been, well, before. Before Chicago, before the Rays, and before his father's ghost had started putting in regular and deeply unhelpful appearances. Now, all were gone, and it was back to just the two of them...
So when he heard that his father had been aboard this ship -- Bob Fraser, here! -- that he was accidentally following in his father's footsteps yet again, he'd been frustrated, but also deeply curious. And so he and Dief set off, roaming the halls in search of some hint, some clue, some piece of his father that still remained aboard. He didn't know if he'd be able to make new friends in this place. In fact, he somewhat doubted it. But maybe... maybe that would help.
And if not, it would at least make up for his father stealing his hat all those years ago.
Special Notes: Fraser claims to be able to understand Diefenbaker's barking (as evidenced by the sample above). It's never quite clear in canon whether he's making this up or not, but he does seem to have a remarkable ability to know what the wolf wants, so he'll be "talking" to him from time to time.
User DW: saywhaaat
AIM/IM: nccgqmf
E-mail: iamrah at gmail
Other Characters: Jesse Pinkman, Angua von Uberwald, Regina George
Character Name: Benton Fraser
Series: Due South
Age: 37
From When?: Post-series
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Fraser is not without his faults, and even went through a brief period where he might have made an appropriate inmate, but ultimately, he's a good man who's utterly dedicated to the cause of justice and helping people. He's considerate, attentive, concerned, and committed.
Item: Fraser will, in fact, carry a compass in his utility belt.
Abilities/Powers: Fraser is a human man with no supernatural abilities. However, in his pursuit of being the Best Mountie he can Be, he's tried to take himself to the limits of human capability. He has superb stamina and can, for example, stay awake for days on end, run for several miles without pause, or "push through" severe injuries. It's not that he's not affected by these things -- it's that he's very, very good at ignoring their effects. In terms of physical talents, he also has essentially perfect aim, and the unique ability to identify most substances by taste and smell. He is an excellent tracker.
Mentally, he's similarly honed. He has a near photographic memory (emphasis on the "photo," as he's better with image than sound) and can speak several languages with varying degrees of fluency, including French, several Native languages, multiple dialects of Chinese, and Russian. He's well-versed in field medicine and tribal/traditional medicine. He also has a great affinity with animals, especially dogs and horses. He also has the surprising tendency to, say, crawl through dumpsters or sewers, yet come out looking clean and unmussed.
Speaking of dogs, Fraser brings with him his lifelong canine companion, his half-wolf Diefenbaker. Dief is deaf, but can read lips in both English and Inuktitut.
Personality: In a way, there are two Benton Frasers: there's the man he strives to be, and the man he really is. The former is what most people see on a regular basis: he's been compared to a wooden soldier, a nutcracker, and Dudley Do-Right, among others things, and that's pretty accurate to the face he presents to the public, and even to his friends a lot of the time. This outer Fraser is all about attaining perfection in the pursuit of justice, and seems all but untouchable. He works tirelessly, always gets his man (always), is fair-minded but strictly moral, never lies, is extremely intelligent and unwaveringly polite... and he isn't interested in baser entertainments like drinking, smoking, or even, seemingly, sex. He's almost the platonic ideal of a man.
As befits such a man, Fraser isn't much given to displays of emotion and can come across as extremely stiff, awkward, and even cold. The former two are true; the latter, only sometimes. Fraser genuinely does believe in being kind and generous to people whenever possible. Despite his slim salary, he gives charitably whenever possible and even frequently gives money to strangers. Because of this last part, and his tendency to assume that other people lie as rarely as he does, he's seen as extremely naive and gullible, and that's also sometimes true, but this particular vulnerability sometimes pays off in surprising ways (for example, he gives a large amount of money to a man begging in the street for a very suspect "treatment for his sick kid"... only to have his money returned later on with the man's gushing thanks). On the other hand, it also makes him very exploitable at times.
He is, however, pretty damn awkward. Fraser's learned a lot of facts, but very few social skills. He's especially uncomfortable with women, and especially women who seem interested in him (at times, he appears to be downright terrified of them), but even with men, he can be fairly inept. He doesn't understand a lot of slang and has an embarrassing habit of misreading things: for example, someone tells him his uniform is "badass" and he is deeply offended by the insult. However, there are hints that at times this is also a put-on, and he understands more than he lets on... not always, but sometimes, because it can be very beneficial to have someone believe you're stupid. On the other hand, Fraser's misunderstanding of people often means he gives them the benefit of the doubt when others don't feel they deserve it, as seen above. It's not *just* that he's more likely to believe a sob story. He's more likely to believe in the goodness of people in general.
This doesn't mean he'll be easily swayed from his duty, though. If he's given a mission and he believes it's righteous, he will stop at absolutely nothing to fulfill it, even at the risk of property damage or damage to himself. He will refrain from hurting others, and he will attempt to keep his quarry alive/won't outright kill them, but he also won't go to pieces if one dies in pursuit. He's pretty comfortable with the subject of death, especially after being haunted by his father for three years. Death, to Fraser, is less frightening than failure. This failure can take many forms: first and foremost is duty, but as Fraser is also deeply loyal to the very few who manage to penetrate his emotional walls, it can also apply to failing them. That makes him miserable, whereas death really isn't all that scary at all. He frequently gets up to death-defying stunts with little concern at all for his own well-being, even when it results in disaster. On one adventure, he was rendered temporarily blind, then half-paralyzed, and still gamely and even somewhat cheerfully insisted on pursuing a suspect.
Fraser's ability to take things in stride, when those things aren't people with emotions, will make him well-suited to the Barge. He's extremely adaptable and will have more problems fitting in than he will dealing with floods or ports. One obstacle he may face, however, is that he is *extremely* morally rigid and does not take well to people suggesting he relax. It's not religious in nature, so it has very little to do with sexuality -- despite his personal discomfort with the subject, he's pretty open-minded about such things (and depending on interpretation may even have once canonically admitted to being bisexual -- he claims not to understand why his straight partner wouldn't want to go on a date with him in drag!). Fraser's unofficial religion is the RCMP, so his morals pretty much come from there. He's vehemently opposed to all forms of lying, cheating, most kinds of violence, and really any unnecessary rudeness. He's determined to uphold the rules and the law at any costs. There are times he'll bend the rules, or use them to his own advantage -- for example, arresting an innocent murder suspect in the Canadian Consulate building so that said suspect would have to be extradited to be arrested in Chicago proper -- but he will never actually break them.
As such, he may not do well with an inmate who needs, for whatever reason, to hang on to a very gray morality (Arya Stark, for example, would not be a good inmate for him, nor would Amanda Young have been), and he might feel like a failure if he does graduate such a person. It's not gray morality itself that's the problem, but he wouldn't like to have a graduate who still thought murder for any reason was okay, for example.
History: Benton Fraser was born in the Northwest Territories in 1961, the son of Caroline Fraser and legendary RCMP Sergeant Robert Fraser. So rural that he was conceived in an igloo and born in a field, Fraser spent the first six years of his life following his father to various middle-of-nowhere postings in places like Inuvik, Nunavut, and Tuktoyaktuk. When he was six, his mother was killed, and Fraser went to live with his grandparents because his father couldn't care for him alone.
George and Martha Fraser were highly strict Presbyterian missionaries and traveling librarians who homeschooled Benton and raised him to be an extremely proper young man. At times, he resented this, and even tried to run away from home more than once. However, his friendships with the local Inuit kept him more or less grounded and taught him a different way of looking at the world. At 18, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the RCMP.
Although the young Constable Fraser quickly earned a reputation for being his father's son -- with an intense sense of justice, relentless dedication to the job, and keen attention to detail and law -- he was not popular among other Mounties and canon implies he was very lonely. Early in his career, he tracked a bank robber named Victoria Metcalf; after being trapped with her in a storm for several days, he fell in love with her, but still refused to compromise his sense of justice and brought her in. She was sentenced to ten years in prison. During this time, he also met Diefenbaker, who saved him from drowning, but lost his hearing as a result.
When Fraser was 34, his father was murdered by his own partner Gerard, whose crime Fraser uncovered and brought to justice. However, since Gerard was a highly respected Mountie, Fraser turning him in ended up making things more difficult for him. He was given a liaison posting in Chicago "until things smooth[ed] over"... although this lasted more than two years. In Chicago, he became unofficial partners with a CPD cop named Ray Vecchio and helped him solve many cases. During this time, his father returned to him as a ghost, making occasional appearances to dispense advice. After a year on the job, he nearly lost everything when Victoria Metcalf tracked him to Chicago: she manipulated Fraser and framed him for murder (and even critically wounded Dief in the process), only to ask him to run away with her instead. He was about to leave Chicago with her when Ray Vecchio accidentally shot him, aiming for Victoria. She got away and Fraser was left behind, dying.
He survived and spent the next year putting himself back together, both physically and psychologically, continuing to work with Ray Vecchio. At the end of their second year together, though, Ray seemingly vanished. Worse -- a complete stranger had shown up, claiming to be Ray. The stranger turned out to be Ray Kowalski, an undercover detective who had been brought in to cover for Vecchio while Vecchio was undercover in the Mafia. After some initial friction, Fraser became fast friends with Kowalski, and even turned down a transfer back to Canada in order to keep working with him. He made a few other close connections, and most notably met his half-sister Maggie McKenzie, his father's daughter by another woman. Neither Maggie nor he knew about the other (even his father didn't realize Maggie was his), and while they felt a connection to each other, they initially interpreted it in a very different way. Luckily, Fraser realized the truth before anything too inappropriate could happen.
At the end of his third year in Chicago, Fraser was confronted by his mother's killer: a man named Muldoon whom his father had failed to bring to justice, and then seemingly killed, decades before. Fraser's chase of Muldoon took him back to Canada and ultimately led to Ray Vecchio's return, Fraser's decision to leave Chicago, and his ghost father's final crossing to the afterlife. After bringing Muldoon to justice, Fraser and Ray Kowalski left on a cross-country adventure through Canada, searching for the Hand of Franklin. I'm headcanoning that at the end of their adventure, Fraser takes this "temporary" posting on the Barge.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The camera turns on to show what appears to be an actual cabin in the woods, small, but complete with a roaring fire blazing in the hearth. The man holding the camera is wearing full Mountie regalia, and looks pleased as punch.]
My thanks for the accommodations, Admiral. It's rather more space than I need, but I'm sure I'll finds ways to fill it.
[There's a bark from offscreen, and the man raises an eyebrow and says, quite pointedly:] No. Not with Krispy Kreme. We don't even have a Krispy Kreme on board, as far as I know.
[He turns his attention back to the camera, clearing his throat.] I beg your pardon, everyone. My name is Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. I first came to the Barge-- well, that's not important right now, but I'll be here as a warden for the time being. I'm very much looking forward to it. [Horrifyingly, this appears to be genuine.]
Sample RP:
It was strange to think of himself as lonely.
Oh, he'd always been solitary; that was nothing new. He'd had solo postings for years before Chicago, gone into the very depths of the Territories for weeks on end without companionship, sometimes without even Diefenbaker. He knew he didn't mesh well with most of the Mounties in his own generation, and even many from his father's days. He accepted these things, if not happily, than without great misery about it.
But that had been, well, before. Before Chicago, before the Rays, and before his father's ghost had started putting in regular and deeply unhelpful appearances. Now, all were gone, and it was back to just the two of them...
So when he heard that his father had been aboard this ship -- Bob Fraser, here! -- that he was accidentally following in his father's footsteps yet again, he'd been frustrated, but also deeply curious. And so he and Dief set off, roaming the halls in search of some hint, some clue, some piece of his father that still remained aboard. He didn't know if he'd be able to make new friends in this place. In fact, he somewhat doubted it. But maybe... maybe that would help.
And if not, it would at least make up for his father stealing his hat all those years ago.
Special Notes: Fraser claims to be able to understand Diefenbaker's barking (as evidenced by the sample above). It's never quite clear in canon whether he's making this up or not, but he does seem to have a remarkable ability to know what the wolf wants, so he'll be "talking" to him from time to time.